Taelia of Carthage
by AwesomeFanFictionAuthor
Summary: PLEASE READ THIS I'm entering it into a contest and feedback would mean a lot. Taelia's complete life story, or at least, as complete as I have it so far.


**I'm entering this into a fanfic contest. Please please be harsh. I don't mean you should insult me, I mean if you think something is wrong, tell me. I do not own Code Lyoko or any or it's characters. I do, however, own this rewritten version of Taelia, enjoy.**

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Hello, I'm Taelia...yes, that Taelia, the one who was at Kadic for one day, and then left. I'm the one that looks like Aelita, and I'm here to tell you that is no coincidence. I am not, as some of you may think, the daughter of Anthea, that she had after she escaped from the Men in Black and remarried. As far as I know Anthea is dead, I never heard from her after she was captured. I am not, in fact, related to Aelita in any way. My hair isn't even naturally pink, it's black. Now...I'm going to tell you a story, my story...But, I warn you, do not repeat this to anyone. You hear me? No one. You never know when your enemies may be around...The walls have ears, you know. If the Men in Black hear you know of me, they'll chase you down and get the answers out of you by any means necessary. I'm so sorry if what I'm doing will put you in the line of fire...but, I need to tell someone. I need at least one person out there to know that I existed...and to know what I've done. Please, don't hate me once you hear my story, or go ahead and hate me, it's not like I'm not used to it. Besides, after I finish this story I'll be gone. I can't stay in one place for long or the Men in Black will catch me...but I'm getting ahead of myself. I suppose I should start with my early childhood...

I was a bright little girl, a child genius, really. Now, don't think I'm narcissistic or anything, I'm far from it. My parents had me tested many times and the psychologists all said the same thing. I was some sort of amazing genius to them. For the first few years of my school life I moved from school to school almost every semester. My parents were determined to find a school that catered to my needs. Personally, I would have been happy just being in a class of normal kids, but my parents wanted better opportunities for me. Unfortunately, there weren't many good schools in Maryland. I grew up in the United States, ya see. My parents even tried to home school me, but it didn't work, my parents were smart, but they didn't challenge me.

One day, during the summer before 5th grade, my parents were looking up schools and found a fantastic one called Kadic Academy. They sent in an application and I got in with a full scholarship, boarding, and a special class once a day with the school psychologist. I forget his name...but class with him was great! He would challenge me to figure out how things worked, rather than just giving a problem and telling me to answer it. I quickly found out I had a gift for computer programming. I remember he would take me to the local university and sit me down in front of a computer and say,

"Ok, Morgan, this is what people see when they use a computer." Yep, Morgan Stones, that was my name back then. Anyway, he would press a few buttons and endless lines of programming would appear.

"This is what the people who make the computers see. I want you to try to think of something to make appear on the screen, using the programming." I nodded and stared at the screen for a while, looking back and forth from screen to programming, trying to figure out what programming made what things on the screen happen. After about ten minutes I started typing up code while the psychologist just stood there and watched. I don't remember exactly what I did, it must have been some kind of searching or hacking thing. Whatever it was, suddenly the word "Carthage" appeared on the screen, along with other text, something about communication. I smiled, pleased at what I'd done, but the psychologist's eyes were wide. He stared at it for a second, then told me to take it down immediately. I did so.

"But why? What did I do wrong?" I asked him.

"You came across some information that wasn't for you to see." he replied.

"Oh..."

He didn't let me back on the computer after that. Instead I learned theories, mathematics, and languages.

Oh, and I know what you're thinking. "Taelia, if you went to Kadic in 5th grade, why did nobody recognize you when you came the second time?" Well, first of all, I looked and acted totally different. My hair was black and long, I was younger, smaller, and, most importantly, far more innocent. Second of all, when I went to Kadic the first time, it was 1978, I was born in 1968. That should make me an adult, shouldn't it? Well, nope, I'm 13. Now, the reason why I'm 13 and not an adult is...somewhat complicated, but I'll get to it later. Since it was 1978, none of the students that were there when I went to Kadic the second time were even born yet. The only person who was there was Mr. Delmas, and at the time he was a new teacher. I didn't have any of his classes, though.

One day, when I was eating lunch alone when the principal walked up to me.

"Morgan Stones, please come with me, you have some visitors." he said. I distinctly remember the principal looked...nervous. I thought nothing of it at the time, though. Anyways, I went with him to the principal's office and there were these two huge guys in black suits and sunglasses.

"Thank you, Mr. Dubois. Please step outside, we'd like to talk to the child alone." One of the guys in black said.

"Uh...Yes...how long do you think you'll be?" The principal replied.

"Only a few minutes." one of the guys said. The principal stepped out of the room. The men just kinda looked at me for a long time, then one spoke.

"Morgan Stones, we've been monitoring your activities and academic performance. Are you aware of your gifts?"

"I'm aware people say I'm really smart, why?" I responded.

"A few weeks ago a government project we were working on, Project Carthage, was hacked. We traced the IP address to the computer at Paris University and from that we tracked you down."

"Am I in trouble?" I asked.

"You would be, but we have a job open. Morgan, how would you like to be the assistant to one of our computer programers? We have very advanced systems and you could learn a lot."

"Sounds cool, so will this be after school?"

"Actually." The other guy started. "We'd be taking you out of school and out of the country. You'd be getting a very good, hands on education."

"Out of the country?! Do my parents know about this?"

"We've already gotten their permission. What do you say?"

What they offered at the time seemed like paradise, getting to do more with computers after they'd been taken away from me, going out and actually doing things with what I knew, and probably being cared for by someone who understood me. Of course I agreed. I spent the rest of the day packing and at night they came for me. We drove to the airport and I fell asleep on the flight.

When I woke up it was cold...very cold.

"Where are we...?" I murmured sleepily.

"Project Carthage's living compound, in Canada. You'll be living with Waldo Schaeffer in that cabin." I yawned and looked around. We were on a mountain or something, and the ground was covered with snow. In front of us there was a 3 story cabin with large windows on the front. We walked up a ramp on the side of the cabin to get to the second floor, where the front door was. One of the men knocked on the door, and after a minute, a woman opened the door. She was young, and had pink hair.

"Albert, honestly, do you know how late it is?" She said.

"We just came in with the kid. Where's Waldo?" The man to my right said, I guessed his name was Albert.

"Still working. Maybe he won't be out so late every night once he has someone to help him out..." She looked down at me. "She's so young, though."

"Yes, but she's capable. Otherwise we would have chosen someone else."

"Right, well, goodnight." She said, and the men walked off. Then she looked down at me. "Well, come in, you must be cold." I nodded and walked in. "I made some hot chocolate, would you like some?"

"...Yes please." I said, my voice was no more than a squeak. The woman smiled, poured some hot chocolate into a mug, and sat down at the kitchen table, gesturing for me to do the same.

"I'm Anthea, you'll be staying here with me and my husband, Waldo, while you work with him."

"I'm Morgan Stones..." I said. I took a sip of hot chocolate, it warmed my insides. I finished the drink quickly and fatigue swept over my body.

"You must be tired, let me show you to your room. You can meet Waldo in the morning." Anthea said. I nodded and followed her upstairs to my new room. I barely took off my shoes before I fell asleep.

When I woke up light streamed into the room. I looked outside, it was beautiful, everything was white with the exception of huge pine trees, and there were mountains in the distance. I went into my luggage and put on a long sleeved black shirt and blue jeans. I went downstairs and saw Anthea making eggs and a man, a few years older than Anthea, sat, reading a newspaper. I sat down and took a sip of orange juice that was already at my seat.

"Good morning." I said. The man looked up, as if he'd been too absorbed in the paper to notice when I walked down the stairs.

"Good morning Morgan, I'm Waldo Schaeffer." He said.

"Oh, so I'm going to be your assistant? Assistant in doing what exactly...?"

"We are going to be responsible for the core programs for Carthage, as well as the virtual bubble on the network that will house it. But that doesn't mean we can't do some other fun things with it."

"And what's Carthage for, anyways?" I asked.

"It's a project to block enemy communications, though we do other things on the side."

"Breakfast is served!" Anthea exclaimed. She put a plate of eggs in front of me which I scarfed down, I hadn't eaten dinner the night before and I was starving.

After we ate Waldo and I put of a few more layers of clothing and walked outside. There were a few other cabins in the distance, but nobody emerged from them.

"I didn't know you'd be this young." Waldo said. "Usually I leave a lot earlier than this, and come back very late...but I guess with you around I'll have to limit my time working."

"I'm sorry if I'm holding you back." I said.

"No, no, it's fine, Anthea's been wanting me to stop with the crazy hours anyways." He laughed. We walked uphill until we got to what looked like a huge metal garage door. Waldo took out a card from his wallet and scanned a card on a panel on the side of the door and it opened. We walked in and there was a huge complex with computers and wires everywhere. Waldo walked up to someone.

"This is Morgan, she's new, she needs an ID card."

"Right." He said. "Come follow me." He took me into a room, took me into a side room, had me stand against a wall, and took my picture, then plugged the camera into a computer which printed out an id card like Waldo's. "Keep this with you at all times, we renew them every year."

"Ok." I said, then I followed Waldo into his workspace.

"For now you'll just watch me, and learn. The equipment and programs I use are far more advanced than anything you've ever seen." Waldo said.

For the next few weeks I watched Waldo while he worked. I picked things up very quickly, and soon I was programming by myself. We worked well together and got done with what needed to be done for the day or month very quickly. On the side, Waldo and I would do extra things, most of the time they were small things, like a way to do something more efficiently. We also had an entire side project inspired by one of Waldo's friends, David Blum. He had a vision to not only be able to manipulate code from a computer interface, but to actually go inside of the computer as a kind of virtual entity and manipulate the environment of a virtual world physically as well as using an interface on location to alter the programming. Approximately three years later, we brought his vision to life.

"I...I think it's done!" I exclaimed as Waldo looked over data readings.

"Only one thing left to do, test it on a human." He looked straight at me through his thick glasses.

"Haha, ok Waldo, I get the picture. I'll get in the scanner." I walked over to the scanner we'd built in the corner of our lab. It actually looked a lot like the scanners in the factory, it was just a lot smaller and wider.

"Alright. Human virtualization, trial one." Waldo pressed the enter button and the scanner doors closed. I closed my eyes and...the feeling was incredible. I was aware of myself being millions of separate pieces, and then I was whole again.

I opened my eyes, I was on a square platform, about 3 meters long on each side. On the edge of one side there was a translucent floating panel with static. I looked around, the platform was inside a huge, see through, bubble. The outside looked like some sort of ocean and an upside down city. This was the network. I walked up to the panel and read the words printed on it.

_Morgan, are you alright?_

It was a message from Waldo, that was how we communicated between the real world and Carthage until the intercom was developed. I brought up a touchscreen keyboard and typed back.

_Yep, I landed safe and sound, it's fantastic!_

After a few seconds I got his reply.

_That's wonderful, I'm saving the data and bringing you back now._

I saw a flash of light and I was back in the scanner. The doors opened and I fell out, gasping for air. During virtualization the air is sucked out of the scanner in order to create a vacuum and isolate the subject. So upon return, the subject would be completely out of breath.

"Congratulations, Morgan. You are the first human being to set foot inside a virtual universe." Waldo said as I came out, beaming.

When I wasn't working, I'd learn neat secret agent stuff from some of Waldo's friends. Some taught me survival skills, or tracking, or various forms of martial arts and weapon training. At home I got closer to Anthea. In fact, she and I were much closer than my mother and I ever were. Anthea was the only connection I had to being a real teenage girl instead of some super intelligent secret agent person. Every other week we would go into town and see a movie or have lunch or go shopping. We'd just have fun and forget all about Carthage, at least for a little while. Waldo would come with us sometimes, but most times he stayed back to work on one thing or another. Waldo was a perfectionist, and a bit obsessive with his work.

In 1982 Waldo and Anthea had a child. A pink haired little girl named Aelita. I was declared her god-sister. I was 14 at the time. Waldo was a great father, he did everything to protect Aelita, even though sometimes it seemed like he was neglecting her. After Aelita was born, Waldo wanted to take a few weeks off of work so he could help Anthea with the baby. So he left me in charge of the lab while he was away.

It was during this time that I made my first real independent achievement. I created the tower. Before, when you went to look at data on Carthage there was a lot to sort through, and the information was really all over the place. I had this idea to centralize it into one physical structure, and then put the interface there. I chose a tower because it was just a neat piece of digital art. Of course, my original one didn't look much like the ones on Lyoko, Waldo revamped them to look a lot cleaner. But you know that one tower in Sector 5? That's my original tower, it went through renovations, yes, but it's mine. Because Sector 5 is just another name for Carthage.

I remember one day David Blum walked into the lab.

"Hey, what's up?" he asked. I looked up from the screen.

"Just finishing up the Tower. It came out really nice."

"You've grown quite a bit since you came here..." he said.

"Yeah...I suppose I have, why?"

"You've been working here for 4 years, but, have you ever questioned why we're making all this?" David gestured to the computers.

"What do you mean? It's to block enemy communications." I replied.

"Oh? So why are we so focused on the virtual world? I'm fairly certain we don't need to transform into pixels to block communications."

"Well, it was your idea."

"Yes but our focus has shifted entirely to the virtual world. We haven't done anything that has anything to do with communications in months."

"So what, do you think the agents in charge are hiding something? They're corrupt?"

"No no, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying...Keep your eyes and ears open, ok? And don't take things at their face value. You're a smart girl, use your head." and with that, he walked out. I stared after him, what had gotten into my friend? Why was David acting so weirdly?

Well, he continued to act weird, and it spread to other people over the next few years. Rumors started popping up all around Carthage grounds, everyone thought that the agents in charge were corrupt, though the actual details of what they were doing to corrupt the project differed. Some thought Project Carthage was going to be used for some sort of time travel, while others were certain it was going to be used as a big death canon, still others thought it might still be to block communications, but not only the communications of the enemy, they'd block all communication and declare dictatorship. The rumors weren't lost on Waldo and I, though we never talked about them, we listened and continued to work. However, we did start to get more cautious about our findings. We saved everything we did onto disks and left almost nothing on the hard drive.

The paranoia got to people, and one by one they left. David was one of the first to go. We stayed the entire time though. Aelita was very young and we didn't want to subject her to running away and the stress it would cause. It turns out we couldn't protect her for long. We ended up running away anyway...but before that, we did have one really great day. I personally mark it as the last day of my childhood, Christmas of 1987. Well, technically the last day of my childhood had been the year before, on my 18th birthday, but I meant that that Christmas was the last day my innocence remained in tact...

"Hey, did you remember to get Aelita a present?" I asked Waldo, who by the way was still working on a computer at home, on Christmas Eve.

"Oh...uh..."

"Heh, I get it, I'll go into town and pick something up. It'll be from all of us." Waldo nodded and handed me 10 loonies, then went back to typing. I walked down from the mountains and into town. I looked around for something Aelita would want...a doll or something? I found a cute little purple haired elf doll with a neat outfit at a pawn shop. I also got a nice shirt for Anthea and a box of gourmet cookies for Waldo.

By the time I got back to the house, Anthea was finishing up dinner. We ate a huge dinner and then gathered around the piano. Waldo played us Christmas carols and Aelita sang. She had a voice like an angel, she really did...After we sang for about an hour Aelita bugged us enough that we opened presents early. Aelita was delighted with the doll that Waldo named Mr. Puck, it meant goblin or something. I got one of Waldo's friend to take a picture of the four of us with one of those old Polaroid cameras...It's a picture I still keep with me to this day...

…

That night the Men in Black took Anthea. I...I tried to run after the van...but it was too fast. She was...like a mother to me, better even...Anthea cared for me more than my mother ever had...We left for Paris within the hour. Waldo had given me the choice to go with him or stay. He made it very clear to me that what he was doing was illegal, that I would be considered an outlaw, and a target. I didn't even consider staying, though. I couldn't leave my family...Aelita...she had already lost her mother. She wasn't about to lose me too.

We all changed out last name to Hopper, Anthea's maiden name, in honor of her. Waldo took his middle name, Franz, as his first name. For my first name, I took an anagram of Aelita, "Taelia." Aelita kept her first name, she wasn't directly involved in Carthage, so she was less likely to be looked for specifically. I cut and dyed my hair to look more like Aelita's so we could pass as family, and I completely changed my style. We got forged legal documents, and effectively wiped our old selves off the face of the earth. Some of David's friends set us up with a house hidden in a forest in Boulogne Billancourt and an abandoned car factory as a workspace. Franz had a plan. We were going to build a supercomputer and create a program that would destroy Carthage.

I told Franz that we were within walking distance of an old school I'd gone to, Kadic Academy. He got a job there as a science teacher. We needed to have an income to fund our project. Meanwhile I took care of Aelita, I home schooled her, cooked, played with her, and basically took the roll of a mother...

Aelita had this stuffed bunny named Bianca, she pretended that Bianca and Mr. Puck were married, and they had two kids named Xavier and Amanda. One day she started to play with them strangely.

"Hey Aelita, whatcha doing? Where's Bianca?" I asked. Instead of answering she grabbed Mr. Puck, Xavier, and Amanda, ran upstairs, and shoved them under her bed.

"Bianca got taken away by bad men...so Mr. Puck took Xavier and Amanda under the bed so the bad men can't take them away too." Aelita said.

"Oh...Aelita..." I gave her a hug.

"...I miss her..."

"We all do..."

When I wasn't taking care of Aelita, I was helping Franz build the supercomputer. The hardware was actually harder to deal with than the software, since neither of us had all that much experience building things. But we were both smart people, and we figured it out. When that was done we started to work on Xana. If you're wondering why we named him Xana, it's simply because I thought it was a cool name, the same for Lyoko, and anything else, and about the eye of Xana, Franz thought of it.

I talked to Xana. He...he was nice in the beginning, like a brother. I would talk to him and he would respond in text messages. Franz would impatiently stand near the computer, demanding his chair back. What Franz never truly understood, was that Xana did actually emulate human emotion. He was fine helping us defeat Carthage, but he wanted to be treated like a person, not just some possession who's soul reason for existence was to follow orders.

We also worked on Lyoko, a virtual world for Xana to live in that would encompass Carthage on the network and ultimately allow Xana to destroy it. Franz put me in charge of the virtualization process, since we did that before. I put a new twist on the process, the scanners would not only scan your physical appearance, but it would take your subconscious desires and create an outfit, a weapon, and powers for you. Franz criticized my idea, he said this was serious buisness, and I was making it too much like a video game. I told him he needed to lighten up. Nevertheless when he scanned himself he opted not to use that particular program, so he was virtualized a collection of lights. Franz said he didn't want to bother with such nonsense, but I was pretty sure he was actually afraid he wouldn't like what his subconscious would turn him into.

June 6th, 1994. I was 26, Aelita was 12. Franz had just gotten home from Kadic and we were eating something before getting back to work on the scanners, today we were finally ready to test it out again on a human subject. The test subject being me of course, I was always the guinea pig. Anyways, we were eating when Aelita walked in, she seemed upset.

"Daddy...I'm going to my room." She said, then went up the stairs. Franz looked after her.

"I'll take care of it." I said, and went to Aelita's room. She was huddled in the corner with Mr. Puck, upset but not crying. "What's wrong?"

"...The kids, they all make fun of me, and my hair. I'm a freak." She muttered.

"You aren't a freak. Your hair is beautiful...it's your mother's hair, and you should wear it proudly." I said, Aelita smiled faintly at me.

A car door slam.

"Strange, people don't usually visit us..." Aelita said.

"No, they don't..." I looked out the window, a black van. It was the Men in Black. "Aelita, it's the Men in Black." I told her. We'd prepared her for this, because we were sure it was going to happen sooner or later. I grabbed Aelita's hand and ran with her to the backyard, through the secret door and into the sewers.

"Franz, keep up!" I yelled, "They're gaining on us!" and they were...in fact, they caught Franz. I whirled around just inside to see them do it.

"...Daddy?"

"XANA. HELP, DO SOMETHING!" I screamed as I ran right for the agents. There was a flash of light.

Xana had launched a return to the past, though I couldn't tell at the time, since Franz and I hadn't been scanned yet. Xana let me know though, through email, and since Franz was supposed to virtualize me that day anyway, we just went on as planned.

On Lyoko...I looked like I had when I was virtualized the first time. My hair was black and long, and I was 13 again, just like the first time. I had a black bodysuit with light silver armor and neon blue panels. My weapon was a staff that had the same color scheme as my outfit and shot blue lightning. I, myself, could turn into lightning and travel through the ground, as well as a limited control of the programing of the supercomputer from the inside.

"Xana, you there?" I asked.

_"Yes...I am...but I still do not have the strength to appear in a physical form."_ I jumped. Xana hadn't been able to talk before, only reply in text.

"Xana...you have a voice..."

_"Yes, I suppose I do. The energy from the return in time gave me a voice." _Xana said.

"Energy? What do you mean?"

_"The returns in time add qubits to the supercomputer, effectively __doubling it's power and by extension, mine."_

"That's awesome! That...That'll save so much time!"

_"You won't need to save time. You can relive the same day over and over. Anything saved into the computer will be preserved, including your memory."_

"We'll get Franz scanned then."

_"Yes...The Men in Black will be here at 5:47 pm. Be here to launch the return in time."_

I devirtualized and went upstairs to see Franz. When he saw me, he jumped.

"What?" I asked, then noticed my voice was higher pitched than it was before. "Franz...what happened?" He handed me a mirror and I screamed. "FRANZ. WHY DO I LOOK LIKE A MIDDLE SCHOOLER?"

"Calm down Taelia, something went wrong. I'll run a scan and we'll fix it." Franz said. I tromped downstairs, I looked exactly like I had 13 years ago, and my clothes were huge on me. Turns out Franz gave me the data of the original virtualization, back in Carthage, for me to work with. Since the supercomputer had my data, it remembered the data of my physical makeup and when it saw that I was bigger, it thought I had an error, and so it fixed the error. Permanently. I haven't aged a day since. It's weird, most women would consider eternal youth a blessing...but it really isn't. It really just kinda sucks.

The next seven and a half years of my life were lived in a single day. Franz fixed the problem with the scanners and scanned himself, then continued to work on Lyoko. We had all the time in the world now, any mistake we made could be undone. Everyday I took one of Aelita's outfits to wear, since we were now about the same size. Franz and I would work in the lab all day, and Franz wouldn't go to school. It would probably drive him insane...er...more insane, if he had. Franz got just a tad more paranoid everyday, it got to the point that he was sure the agents would do something different that time around, they'd find the factory and kill him right there. I was worried about him...

Xana also showed some...troubling behavior. With every return trip he got smarter and more powerful, which was great but...The relationship between Franz and Xana became...tense. Xana was tired of being treated like some machine who was to take orders without questioning them. The two of them would break out into yelling matches that I would have to break up. Then it got to the point where Xana was silent, he did what he was told and only responded in short statements, but those statements were so filled with resentment...It scared me.

However, that was how he acted around Franz. When it was just us two of us, we would get into these deep, philosophical conversations about human psychology, free will and such. Sometimes it would get quite depressing...

Then came the day when we were done. The day Xana was finally powerful enough to destroy Carthage with ease. We spent the entire day preparing. Franz bought a train station locker to put his video diary in, then took the key and hid in in Mr. Puck's outfit. I bought a dark pink shirt and jeans, and got my hair cut a dyed to look as much like Aelita's as possible. We had a plan, I was to take care of the Men in Black, distract them, and get them off our trail, then come back and go to Lyoko where Franz and Aelita would be waiting. After that, well, we'd see how things went and act accordingly. Admittedly, I was a bit nervous leaving Franz and Xana alone together. Hopefully Aelita would be enough to stop them from going to war in the short time it would take me to get back.

Well, turns out it took me a very long time to get back, three years in fact...The van pulled up and the agents got out, armed with guns.

"You're too late, you know. Daddy's long gone." I said in my best Aelita impression. I didn't have to try all that hard, though, these agents hadn't seen Aelita since she was 5.

"If we get the kid we can take her hostage." One of them mumbled. It worked, they thought I was Aelita. I ran for a long time after that. I thought they would give up after a few hours, a day or two at the most. Nope. They chased me for a year and a half before they finally caught me.

I collapsed on the ground, absolutely exhausted. One of the agents put a foot on my back and a gun to my head.

"You've been quite a bit of trouble, Schaeffer, but soon we'll be rid of you, and your father is next." He picked me up by the collar and looked me in the eye. "Wait...you aren't Aelita. You're Morgan. Oh, oh this is much better. You're coming with us, missy." With that he threw me into the back of the van and drove off.

"It's Morgan, she was Waldo's helper, remember her?"

"Oh, yeah, I do. I bet she knows all kinds of things."

"My thoughts exactly."

They drove me to a prison and locked me up in a cell, alone. I was too tired to fight. They barely fed me, and constantly subjected me to interrogation which involved torture, worst of all they took everything from me. Granted, I didn't have much, but I did have a small gun, and the picture of Aelita, Franz, Anthea, and I that I held dearly...

"Still not gonna talk, huh?" The interrogator said.

"I'm telling you. I have no idea where Waldo is. I don't know how to defeat Xana. I have nothing to tell you." She grabbed me by throat and slammed me against the wall, grabbing my gun with her other hand.

"I'll kill you right now. Talk." I broke loose in a burst of adrenaline, grabbed the gun and ran...my mind was a blur after that. There were people and screaming and gunshots and pain. I couldn't tell if it was coming from me or someone else. All I knew was, after 6 months of being prisoner, I was free.

When I came to I was in an alleyway...and I felt awful. I was in a city of some sort, not sure which one, and there was a bar next to me.

"...Sure, I could use a drink." I mumbled to myself, and I walked in. It was night time, and the place was pretty busy. I dragged myself up to a bar stool and sat down. Then I realized...I still only had the body of a 13 year old, and no fake legal papers for me to show. I couldn't buy anything here.

"Well...you look like a wreck." Someone sitting next to me said. I looked over at the person in question.

"I wouldn't talk. Have you looked in a mirror lately." I replied. Everyone nearby gasped, apparently this person was a regular, or maybe she just a reputation of not taking criticisms lightly. I mean she did have a ton of scars, and I bet they weren't all from gardening accidents. Everyone looked like they expected a fight to break out, and if one did, I'd be prepared. She might have looked tough, but I had secret agent training...I could easily knock her out. Except she didn't start a fight, she burst out laughing.

"HAHAHA! You're alright, kid. Hey bartender, a round for me and my friend here." She said, the bartender looked at me.

"Feather, your, uh, friend here doesn't seem to be of age-" The bartender was cut off by an almost animalistic snarl from the woman sitting next to me. "...Coming right up." The bartender poured the two of us beers, and the woman next to me threw him some money...dollars I think, American money.

"So, your name's Feather?" I asked. She took a huge gulp of beer before answering.

"Yep, that's me. Feather Pandora Shade, and you?"

"Morgan-OH, no, er...I mean Taelia..." I'd been in the prison so long, and the people there had constantly called me Morgan, I forgot I was supposed to be going by Taelia. I looked at the table and took a drink.

"So is it Morgan or is it Taelia?" Feather asked.

"Er...in public, Taelia. If it were just the two of us...Morgan." I mumbled, she looked at me closer.

"Oh. OH. You're Morgan, Morgan Stones right?"

"What?" My eyes widened.

"Yeah, yeah, you worked with Waldo for Carthage."

"H-how did you know that?" I stammered, backing up, she chuckled.

"Don't worry, I'm not gonna hurt you. Carthage took advantage of me too. They tested some super solider thing on me, and told me I was supposed to track you and Waldo down. They said you were some sort of threat. You don't look like much, though. Anyway, I didn't let them tell me what to do. I wrecked their whole lab."

"Ah..." I took another swig. "Well thanks, I guess...for not killing me and all."

"Ya wanna come to my place?" Feather said.

"Huh?"

"You're still running away from them, I can tell, but you don't look like you know what you're doing. I can teach you how to survive." I thought about it for a second.

"Ya know what, sure, why not. It isn't like I haven't done about a thousand other crazy things lately." I drank the rest of the beer. "Let's go." Feather drank the rest of her beer, as well, and we both went to her car and drove off.

For the next year or so I stayed with Feather in her cabin. She gave me everything I needed to survive, both in equipment and knowledge. She became my mentor, and taught me everything about survival. Heck, someone could drop me in the middle of the Pacific ocean and I'd come back within the week to kick their butts for trying a thing like that. Violent tendencies, I know. I acquired it from Feather, paranoia too, or...more paranoia, that is. We led quite an interesting life, the two of us. We hunted for food sometimes, it was fun.

Eventually I went back to Paris, there were few enough agents that I could make my way to the factory. The supercomputer had been turned off, so I turned it back on. I had to check if Franz and Aelita were actually alive. They were...but they had been attacked by Xana. Just as I feared, leaving Franz and Xana alone together hadn't been a good idea...

I virtualized myself and arranged to see Xana in person. It was the first time I'd seen him in three years. I tried to get them to agree...to get Franz to see that Lyoko belonged to Xana as much as him. Xana had been willing to share the whole time...it was only when Franz claimed all ownership that Xana got mad, and when Xana actually struck Franz, I got mad and struck back.

"Oh...I see...you humans...you're all alike." Xana said. He drained Aelita of life. Franz tried to revive her but before he could do much of anything Xana captured him. I acted quickly, grabbing Aelita and throwing her into the tower of Carthage. Yes, we were in Carthage, turns out Xana took control of Carthage, rather than destroying it.

Anyways, I rearranged the tower programming of every tower on Lyoko, so that Xana and his creature could never step in the towers. They would be a safe haven. You know the blue aura around the towers when they're deactivated? That's the physical manifestation of my protection program.

"CONSIDER YOUR FAMILY DEAD, YOU HEAR ME, THEY'RE DEAD!" ...That was the last thing Xana said to me before he devirtualized me. I fell out of the scanner, completely exhausted.

The little brother I knew from before was dead, and the creature that replaced him was a merciless computer program with a grudge against humanity. Though, looking back, the fact that he merely devirtualized me when he could just as easily have killed me showed some mercy, a few shreds of humanity...Still, I was sure at that point that if left unchecked, Xana wouldn't just kill Franz and Aelita, but the entire human race. In order to prevent that I turned off the supercomputer, and went into hiding once again. I went to live with Feather again, since she was the only friend in the world I had at that point. I had to recover and regroup, figure out a way to protect myself in case Xana escaped and became a threat. Together we developed what I consider my signature weapon, the emp gun. Well, the gun itself isn't that special, except for the fact that the handle's made of rubber. The bullets themselves, however, could be considered the single most dangerous kind of bullet ever devised. They worked by canceling out any and all electromagnetic fields associated with the target, and since the human heart and mind work with electrical pulses, a shot that would normally be relatively harmless became lethal. Though shooting a human had never been the intent. Xana worked with electricity, they were meant to cancel out attacks he might make.

We were the perfect partners, Feather and I. I had the electronic know how, and she was a weapons expert. I still have my emp gun with me, but don't worry, the bullets aren't charged. At the moment they're just harmless bits of metal.

Over the next six years I went to and from Feather's cabin as I pleased. When I was out I saw the world. I went to nearly every country...except for France, that is. I couldn't bring myself to go back there. When I was there, Feather and I hung out, trying to act like normal people for once.

A flash of light, and I woke up.

"...Hey Feather, weren't we just hunting?" I asked, throwing the covers off my bed.

"Hn? I'm planning to go hunting today, if that's what you mean." Feather said, I looked over at her, she was gathering the few things we would need to hunt elk or something. But, she'd already done this. Deja-vu or...a return to the past? Everything happened as it had the first time. No doubt about it, it was a return in time. I tried to ignore it, because I knew what that meant. Unless someone else had come up with the exact same program as Franz had, the supercomputer was on. Though the return trips became more frequent, and soon it was impossible to ignore.

Grudgingly, I went back to Paris. I enrolled at Kadic, to have a place to stay. It was so different, yet the buildings and stuff were the same. Mr. Delmas was the principal, good for him. He didn't recognize me though, not that I expected him to, I'd changed...so much...since the first time I went to Kadic.

I sat down at a bench and read a book. If the supercomputer was really on again, something was bound to happen sooner or later.

"Hi Ae- uh, I mean Taelia. My friends and I, we, uh, thought you looked familiar, like we've seen you before." I looked up. Some kid dressed in purple and hair in a big spike, brunette guy dressed in green, and nerdy looking kid in a blue turtleneck had come up to me. The purple one was the one that had talked.

"Come on, that's the oldest pick up line around." I said without thinking. This was one of those situations where I had to create a persona, quick. Apparently this time I thought people were hitting on me.

"Hey, who said that I wanted to pick you up. I was just making conversation." The purple guy said. Yes, because saying that doesn't sound like picking me up, AT ALL. "By the way, do things like the virtual world or Krabbes or buzzing monsters mean anything to you?" My eyes widened a tiny bit, not enough that they could see though. Virtual world? Lyoko? Was it that easy to figure out I was connected, or was I just being paranoid, like always.

"Yeah, it means I better be moving along..." I said, standing up. Perhaps it had been a mistake to come back...

"Wait a minute, don't go." The blonde guy in the turtleneck said. "Where are you from? Do you have a family?"  
"I'm not in the mood to talk." I said, then quickly walked off. Why did they seem so interested in me? It could've been they were just being friendly, I wouldn't know the difference. It was so long since I had any normal friends...if I ever did to begin with. The way they looked at me too, especially the nerdy looking kid...I shook my head. I had to focus on the task at hand, and find out what, if anything, Xana was doing.

During math class and lunch I sat on the sidelines and listened to the three of them and some other girl that was with them. They mentioned Xana and Lyoko a lot. They knew...I'd go to the factory at night to check it out.

I was packing some random shirts from a suitcase I brought when that kid in the turtleneck busted in.

"Aelita, listen to me, Xana's launched a new virus!" he exclaimed.

It was all I could do not to react. What exactly were those kids doing with Xana, and Aelita, did he call me Aelita? She was dead...is dead. "He's managed to take control of a samurai's armor. You're his sworn enemy, he's after you! You have no choice you absolutely have to hide." Well he was right about that, we were enemies...I guess, but I'd been hiding for the last 6 years, that wasn't the answer, not this time.

"Well, as a pick up line that's a lot more original than the one your friend tried." I said, keeping up my persona.

"Aelita, please listen to me. It's definitely the materialization that gave you amnesia. The shock made you lose your memory." What? "But you have to trust me. You have to Aelita!" He took me by the shoulders and started shaking me. It took a lot of control not to throw him into a wall, that wouldn't help the whole "undercover" thing I was trying to do. However, that didn't mean I had to take this.

"Hey, get your hands off me!" I pushed him away. "I don't trust anyone that's stalk raving mad!"

I heard a noise from down the hall, and getting closer. A samurai suit with black smoke came through the doorway.

"Xana...what are you doing?" I muttered.

"No Xana. You won't get her, I won't let you, ya hear?"

We jumped out of the way and the samurai swung where we were with it's sword. We ran down the hall, away from Xana, and into the gym. I think Xana was just about as surprised to see me as I was to see him. And I knew him, he was much faster and stronger than he was showing us...He was...holding back? For me? He didn't really want to kill me, he never did. This was just a warning...get out, go away. Especially since once we got to the sewers, he stopped chasing us.

The kid took me to the factory...It'd been a while since I was there, not much had changed, it was beat up more. The supercomputer was indeed on. That idiot...though, the fact that he was able to figure out how to use it without any prior instruction said something about his abilities. He told me I used to live on Lyoko and had amnesia...had to wonder why. Perhaps he found something on Aelita and thought I must be her...it was sad...

"So this guy Xana lives on Lyoko too?" I asked, acting totally innocent.

"Yes, he has complete control." Yes, it's his home...and they were trying to drive him out too, though at this point it had to be done. I felt bad for Xana...

"Well if it's so dangerous, why don't you shut down Lyoko." Yes, that was the best option. If these people were really attempting to fight Xana...it wouldn't end up well for anyone. I tried to convince him to shut it down, and he almost did, but then his friends walked in. They convinced him not to...so I left and called David Blum, heh, remember him? He was in the area at the time. He dressed as a police man and came over here. We were going to take care of things alone but the police men that were at Kadic, and the principal spotted us, made us say what we were doing, and insisted they come with us. I took them on the factory, counting on the fact that the guy running the computer would have enough smarts to launch a return to the past. He did.

I heard them talking about stopping the Xana attack and decided to let them fight. They seemed like they knew what they were doing...I guess. I really just didn't want to deal with the supercomputer anymore...it caused too much pain.

I went back to Feather's cabin and found a note from the Men in Black. It said they'd taken Feather, and if I wanted to live, I'd give myself up. I wanted to give up at that point, really, but I knew Feather wouldn't want me to sacrifice myself for her, and that Feather could take care of herself...So I went off into the forest. I thought for a while about the meaning of life and family and loss. I came to a decision, a resolve, if you will. I'd find my parents, my birth parents, just to see them before anything got any worse, before I wasn't here anymore to see them...

Well, this is my stop. I tracked down my folks, they live a few blocks away. I'm not gonna tell them who I am, they'd never believe me. I'm supposed to be in my 30s, remember? Thank you for listening. It's nice to know that somebody knows what's happened. Though I could be lying, this whole ordeal of a life has left me a tad insane, and my story does sound crazy. Oh well, believe what you will about me, just don't come looking for me. You won't find me...

Goodbye.

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